America’s Soldiers Deserve Better

Washington, D.C. –Asked when American combat forces should be used to quell humanitarian crises that pose no threat to U.S. security, Barack Obama pointed to Darfur and Rwanda, saying, “When genocide is happening…and we stand idly by, that diminishes us.” McCain agreed: “We must do whatever we can to prevent genocide.”

But according to Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, “Vowing to send U.S. troops on selfless missions is a travesty.

“What Obama dismisses as standing ‘idly by’ really means: to protect the irreplaceable lives of American soldiers by refusing to ship them off on sundry ‘peacekeeping’ missions that do nothing to make us safe. That is not some cold-hearted gesture, but the government’s moral obligation. Nothing but a threat to American lives or freedom can justify putting our soldiers in harm’s way. Demanding they spill their blood in order to stop warring tribes from slaughtering each other is an obscene violation of their rights–regardless of how noble McCain or Obama thinks the cause is.

“Our soldiers deserve better. Instead of sacrificing U.S. treasure and lives for the alleged welfare of foreigners, we should demand a foreign policy that treats American security as its exclusive concern.”

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel, CNN, CNBC, and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

Ayn Rand Saw This Coming

Washington, D.C. –“Despite overwhelming evidence that government policies caused the current financial crisis, Congress is blaming businessmen,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “What’s worse, the capitalists who have been shackled with unprecedented regulatory burdens are unable to defend themselves morally. Though the events are different, this pattern of abuse and submission is straight out of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

“The cycle starts with government intervening into the economy and imposing regulations and controls on business. This distorts the free market, leading to economic dislocations. When the problems caused by these distortions inevitably follow, everyone blames the free market and its greedy capitalists. The proposed solution? More government controls. Over the years, conservative critics of creeping government have repeatedly exposed this illogic but have always been helpless to explain why the cycle keeps repeating, decade after decade.

“The pattern keeps recurring because businessmen are willing to take the blame. From capitalism’s inception, its defenders have been morally disarmed by the widespread view that self-interest is morally suspect, and disinterested service to others is a moral ideal. So each new spate of controls has been grudgingly accepted as a fair price to pay for society’s toleration of the selfish pursuit of profit.

“Atlas Shrugged depicted a society in economic collapse due to this recurring cycle, and today’s parallels are obvious. Government manipulation of money, credit, and lending standards over several decades caused the mess we’re in. Now, the offered solution is more of the poison that sickened the economy–more bailouts, more cheap money, more government-guaranteed loans, and above all, more regulations.

“This chronic cycle will not end until businessmen accept that their production of profit is neither immoral nor amoral–it is the capstone of moral virtue. Once they shrug off the role of scapegoat, businessmen can demand with moral certitude that government punish fraud and enforce contracts but refrain from interfering with voluntary trades among consenting adults.

“When America’s markets are finally free of all coercion–in other words, when laissez-faire is achieved–financial crises such as the one we’re experiencing will never happen again.”

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

Bush Bails Out Subprime Automakers

Washington, D.C. – President Bush just signed into law what the Wall Street Journal describes as “a low-interest loan package to aid U.S. auto makers.”

“Have we learned nothing from the subprime mortgage fiasco?” said Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “We are embroiled in a credit crisis, rooted in government policies that promoted and backed reckless, low-interest loans to subprime home buyers–loans that could eventually cost Americans trillions of dollars in bailouts and losses. And now, when lenders on the private market understandably won’t lend $25 billion to car companies that often shed billions by the quarter, the government is making reckless, low-interest loans to these subprime automakers?

“Obviously, our government has learned nothing from the crisis. But it has taught industry a terrible lesson: you fail, you get a bailout.”

Mr. Epstein is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, focusing on business issues. Mr. Epstein’s op-eds and letters to the editor have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Canada’s National Post, and the Washington Times. He is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Mr. Epstein has been a guest on numerous nationally syndicated radio programs.

Hey, Big Spenders!

Washington, D.C. – In Friday’s presidential debate, John McCain railed against government spending, trumpeting his opposition to earmarks.

“While McCain and Obama pose as opponents of government spending, they are not,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “To actually stem the torrent of government spending, it is not just pork that must be cut–but the massive welfare state entitlements that neither McCain nor Obama dares challenge.

“It takes little courage to denounce bridges leading to nowhere and buildings dedicated to campaign donors. Such projects are transparent examples of politicians using taxpayer funds to curry favor with special interests. But such projects make up only a tiny fraction–six-tenths of a percent–of the government’s $3 trillion dollar budget.

“The real spending spree isn’t to be found in government pork but in massive welfare state entitlements, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. These are the programs that have led to soaring debt, a crushing tax burden, and economic stagnation.

“So long as America is forced to bankroll costly welfare programs, there is no way to meaningfully reduce government spending. What we need is a politician who will stand up for the ideals of the Founders: a government limited to its proper function of protecting individual rights; a government under which people are responsible for providing for their own needs–and are left free to do so. That would take real political courage.”

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

The Looming Crisis over Free Speech

What: A lecture examining the escalating censorship in America and explaining what is needed to protect our freedom of speech

Who: Eric Daniels, research assistant professor at Clemson University’s Institute for the Study of Capitalism

Where: 101 Morgan Hall, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720

When: Monday, October 6, 2008, 7 pm

Description: In this lecture, Dr. Daniels examines the state of free speech in America and finds that it is under serious threat. From campus speech codes to anti-discrimination and harassment law, from campaign finance to commercial speech, Americans today enjoy less and less freedom in communicating their ideas. Today’s colleges and universities have become a hotbed of censorship, producing generations of Americans who have accepted suppression of speech as the norm. Daniels argues that the emerging crisis is a result of the lack of a proper understanding of individual rights, especially property rights. Only by understanding the proper basis of rights can we act to secure our freedom of speech and to protect the rights that give rise to it.

Bio: Dr. Eric Daniels is a research assistant professor at Clemson University’s Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He has lectured internationally on American history, particularly on American intellectual history, business history and political history. He taught for five years at Duke University’s Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace, where he was nominated for a university-wide teaching award. Dr. Daniels was a contributor to the recently published Oxford Companion to United States History, and wrote a chapter in The Abolition of Antitrust. He has appeared on C-SPAN and Voice of America Radio.

For more information on this lecture, please e-mail media@aynrand.org.

Pelosi says bailout plan has to pass (Reuters)

Reuters – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday a plan to rescue U.S. financial institutions “has to happen,” but final agreement is up to conservative Republicans who revolted against the plan being negotiated between Congress and the Treasury Department.

Read more…

A bad day for the GOP on politics, bailout plan (AP)

AP – Even for a party whose president suffers dismal approval ratings, whose legislative wing lost control of Congress and whose presidential nominee trails in the polls, it was a remarkably bad day for Republicans. Read more…

US wrangling and mutual collapse sparks new market fall (AFP)

AFP – Deadlocked talks on a bailout of the US financial system and the collapse of Washington Mutual bank sparked new falls on global markets Friday despite the injection of tens of billions of dollars by central banks.
Read more…

Lawmakers to tackle bailout plan again Friday (Reuters)

Reuters – Congressional leaders will try again on Friday to save a $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan after talks broke down in acrimony against the backdrop of the nation’s biggest-ever bank failure.

Read more…

Credit Crisis Makes a Case for Abolishing, Not Expanding, the Fed

Washington, D.C. – In response to the credit crisis, the Federal Reserve has been granted unprecedented powers to bail out and nationalize companies–as if its track record makes it a good candidate for addressing our economic problems.

“The Federal Reserve is not the solution to the crisis, it is its root cause,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. “By keeping interest rates artificially low and inflating the currency, it created the illusion that homes and subprime mortgages were can’t-miss investments.

“Now, as we bear witness to the wreckage of the Fed’s previous central planning, the solution offered is even more Fed central planning. This is absurd. The way to prevent future credit crises is to get rid of the government’s arbitrary power to determine the money supply and the price of credit, and return to a gold standard.”

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

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